


After Normandy. Chapter One: Aldbourne, Cigarettes and Silence.

by TheOCDDI (TooHotchInTheHottub)



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Fluff in chapter one, M/M, Spoilers, angst in later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:45:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooHotchInTheHottub/pseuds/TheOCDDI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Normandy, the depleted Easy Company returns to Britain to await replacements and further orders.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Normandy. Chapter One: Aldbourne, Cigarettes and Silence.

 

After Normandy. After losing around half of easy company. After losing a part of himself, Burton. P Christenson returned to England. He, and the rest of Easy Company, slouched into Aldbourne filthy and tired. Pat wondered if he’d ever get the dirt off him. He wondered if he would ever get the smell of smoke out of his hair.

They had expected the replacements. They knew they were coming. They knew they would be needed before the company re-deployed. What the veterans didn’t know was how much they would resent the newbies. How much they could resent their fresh faces and bright eyes and strange ideas of glory and heroism. They didn’t have the fear and desperation born of combat, didn’t know how to truly appreciate the men around them. They were all so infuriatingly hopeful. Pat tried not to hate them all at first sight. He failed.

He hated them right down to his bones. Hated them for being able to look up into the sky at night and find something more poetic in the moonlight than enemy visibility. He hated them all… all except one.

Private James W. Miller, ironically, had the freshest face of all of them. A slight boy with black hair, impossibly red lips and the bluest eyes Pat had ever seen. The man was a goddamned picture.

And what Pat felt the first time they met seemed a long way from hate.  
***

The company had fallen in to meet the new arrivals, standing in their new uniforms, waiting for new men. The trucks had pulled up, the replacements got out and things had become tense.

“What do these guys fuckin’ know?” Leibgott muttered beside Pat.

“Most they’ve seen of the world is their mamma’s titties.” Pat agreed. Leibgott had scoffed.

“The Kraut’s will teach ‘em soon enough.” Pat could only nod at that. When the German’s held a lesson, you got taught, and you stayed taught. Or you got dead, and Lord knows, you stayed dead.

They sized the new arrivals up all through exercises that day, until they were dismissed. In the barracks Pat discovered that to his left, in a place vacated by a boy from South Carolina, there was a replacement. He was busy organising his kit into his foot locker. Pat sat down on his bunk and watched him. His grey eyes had only seemed greyer since they had returned from France, and they watched the careful, deliberate movements of the man in front of him. He had small, rough hands, the fingers square and nails well clipped. He seemed deep in concentration, every movement precise and measured. He was small, he had to be about five foot six, his frame thin. His neat black hair had fallen into his eyes, so when he finally did look up at Pat he had to shake it out of his face.

Those eyes. They astounded Pat. They were blue… and pragmatic.

“You got a cigarette, private?”

“Miller. James Miller.” He offered his name while he handed a cigarette to Pat. Pat leaned forward and let the man light it for him. He took a long drag of tobacco and sat back, enjoying the slight nervousness coming from Miller, who was still crouched on the floor in front of him. After a long silence, during which he smoked and Miller licked that full bottom lip, Pat spoke.

“Christenson. Burton, P. Everyone just calls me Pat.”

“Christenson.” Miller breathed out. Pat enjoyed that he wasn’t presumptuous enough to class himself a part of their ‘everyone’. Not yet.

“Suppose you’re ready to get out there and kill some Krauts.”

“I’m ready to do my job, and make sure I don’t get anyone in Easy Company killed.” Miller answered. He returned to packing his gear up. Christenson just sat and watched him. Finally, Malarkey appeared in the door and asked him if he was going to go get some chow. Pat answered in the affirmative and walked to the door.

“Thanks for the cigarette, Miller.” He ground the butt into the floor with his well-worn boot, and walked away. Miller paused and watched him go. Pat didn’t turn around. Miller finished packing his kit away, and sat down to polish his much newer boots.  
***

Pat and Miller fell into a strange routine after that. If they were off duty, and alone, Miller would silently offer Pat a cigarette. Pat would, equally silently, take it and they would just sit or stand vaguely together before Pat would crush the butt of the cigarette beneath his heavy sole and walk away.

After a while, the departure was accompanied by a small nod.

Then a slight grin.

Then with “Miller.”

Pat found himself thinking of those blue eyes whenever he had a quiet moment. Every night, as he fell exhausted into his cot, he would will himself not to turn his head to the left, not to gaze at the other man. He failed only once. On a Thursday, six weeks after they had first met, Pat had turned his head, only to find Miller’s baby blues trained on him. At first he held his breath, wondering if he should look away. Then he remembered that he was a paratrooper, a goddamned Normandy veteran, and he was made of sterner stuff. So, rather than look away, he had tucked his right forearm behind his head, stretched out on his cot, rested his left hand on his flat stomach and continued to watch Miller watch him. After a minute he had smirked and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. In the darkness, Pat almost missed the flush that spread over that freckled face. He smiled fully at the reaction, then he merely shut his eyes, glad that Miller flickered behind his eyelids as sleep took hold of him.

The next Wednesday Pat and Miller pulled guard duty. Not allowed to talk while standing sentry, they had fallen into their usual routine. Pat took the cigarette, but allowed their fingers to brush slightly. Then he waited for Miller to light the end, and leaned back on the wall, eyes shut, neck stretched out as he smoked it. He could feel Miller move a little closer, the wind had picked up and it was cold. He looked down at the man, Miller looked right back at him, his gaze steady. Pat offered him the cigarette. Miller shook his head. This time, when he finished, Pat clapped a hand on Miller’s shoulder and squeezed a little. Unexpectedly, Miller covered it with his own hand.

Pat wondered what it meant.

Then it was gone, Miller had stepped away and they went back to work.  
***

**Author's Note:**

> This has been on my computer for over a goddamned year. The second part will be posted after university is over in 3 weeks (just in case anyone actually cares)


End file.
